


The Dance of Death

by Citrine (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A dark love story, Exhibitionism, M/M, Masturbation, Murder, Oral Sex, Sherlock's p.o.v, Unsafe Sex, Voyeurism, dark!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 05:10:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Citrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From 'A Study in Pink':<br/>Dr. John Watson: A place like this must be expensive.<br/>Sherlock Holmes: Not really. I know the landlady, Mrs. Hudson. She owes me a favour. A few years back, her husband was sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out.<br/>Dr. John Watson: You stopped her husband from being executed?<br/>Sherlock Holmes: Oh, no, I ensured it.</p><p>Why and how did Sherlock do that? Was Mr Hudson really guilty? And if he wasn't what part did his wife play in Sherlock's little scheme? And how will John react when he finds out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dance of Death

**Author's Note:**

> A dark take on our favourite characters. I hope you enjoy reading it.
> 
> Disclaimer: No copyright infingement intended. For entertaintainment purposes only. I'll put them back when I've finished playing with them.

_Come hither into darkness, my dearling, my love._

I like the rage that burns in you with slow fire, banking and building, flames of fury controlled and concealed. Your hands are gentle as you dab at the bruises on Mrs Hudson’s face with cotton wool dipped in TCP. Your voice is calm, reassuring.   I soak up the timbre of your gentle tones. They shiver in my blood as I imagine them bestowed upon me in other, more intimate circumstances.

“We have to call the police.” You turn your head to look at me and I see the determination on your face.

Mrs Hudson grabs your forearm. “No, John. There’s really no need. It doesn’t matter about the handbag. It was only an old one and I didn’t have much money in it.”

She looks at me in mute appeal and I see that she is frightened of something more than a random mugger.  It is not like her to be afraid and I heed the silent warning.

“Not if Mrs Hudson doesn’t want us to.” I place my hand upon her bony shoulder and she reaches up and covers it with hers. “What use do you suppose those idiots will do anyway? A stolen handbag is hardly worth investigating. A crime number and a few meaningless platitudes are all that we’ll get, assuming that they trouble to send anyone at all.”

“We could have a word with Lestrade. He could get someone on the case.”

Mrs Hudson gives a tiny shake of her head.

John glares at both of us. “We can’t just let him get away with it.”

“We shan’t,” I promise him. “I can find him quicker than the police can.”

“And when you do?” demands John.

I shrug, an elegant ripple of my shoulders beneath my coat.  John understands everything that gesture means and he acquiesces. That pleases me, but it does not surprise. Behold the man who killed without conscience on the strength of a two day acquaintance. The bullet hole which suddenly appeared in the taxi driver’s chest even startled me.

Mrs Hudson squeezes my hand for a second and I know that she wants to tell me something. Alone. Away from John. There is only one secret that we keep from him. Therefore, it is that and when he turns his back to wash his hands in her kitchen sink she mouths the words at me.

“It was David.”

David. It takes an instant for me to recall the skinny boy with the sandy-red hair. Freckles, a striped t-shirt, glasses and a stutter. Ah, yes, David. He was a child then and of no significance, but that was nine years ago. He would be a young man now, twenty-two years old. A rather violent young man to judge by the bruises and grazes Mrs Hudson bears. Yet he could have killed her and he did not. Interesting.

John stands on the other side of the table. He looks at Mrs Hudson with concern. “I’d be a lot happier if you let A&E check you over.”

“There’s no need, dear, you said yourself that there’s nothing broken.” Mrs Hudson gives him a watery smile. “We’re bound to have to wait for hours, no matter how much fuss Sherlock makes. I’d much rather just have a nice cup of tea and go to bed.”

John brews her tea. I check that all the doors and windows are securely locked. Then we leave her after she’s promised to call us if anything is the least bit amiss.

“Do you think that she’ll be all right?” asks John halfway up the stairs.

“Yes, she’ll be fine.” Mrs Hudson is both stronger and more resourceful than he realises.

*

It is the next morning before I’m able to evade John without arousing suspicion and speak to her alone. Mrs Hudson tells me that David wanted her – wanted us – to repent and confess. It was only when she refused that he became violent. I insist that she describe him in the minutest detail, everything that she can remember, and by the time she’s finished I have a clear idea not only of his appearance, but also of his very nature.

John is chomping at the bit. He wants to find the mugger. I’m grateful for a case from Lestrade to divert him with, a double murder which I could solve easily. By sledge of hand I make it appear much more difficult than it is, entertaining John, baffling the detective division and enhancing by own reputation in the process.

I decide to spin out the conclusion and I leave with John in tow to continue my investigations. We walk to the end of the street in search of a taxi.  As always I watch everything and there he is on the other side of the road. David’s hair has darkened slightly, but he still wears virtually the same style of glasses.  Mrs Hudson’s description erred in some particulars. I readjust my conclusions in light of the new evidence. David’s gaze locks with mine for a few seconds then I step calmly into the taxi.

“What’s happening about the mugger?” asks John.

“Homeless network.”

“Tell them to hurry it up.”

He’s impatient for vengeance. My John who can be adamant and iron, if there were truly a mugger I would almost pity him with both of us upon his heels. David is a different matter. I must deal with him alone.

*

I do have a use for the homeless network or at least for one member of it. Andy was an IT specialist before his wife left him and he hit the bottle. His expertise opens the electronic doors I cannot open for myself. Soon David’s life is laid bare before me. Juvenile convictions for minor crimes, passport and immigration records, even his baptism into the Church of England. There is no mention of his uncle, who was strictly speaking not his uncle at all. He was David’s step-mother’s brother, but the boy had been close to him.

I gaze thoughtfully at my laptop. Thanks to Andy I know exactly where David is staying, right down to the number of his hotel room. I shall pay him a visit later.

In the meantime I flick through the news items on the internet. It is all mundane and tedious. Little people with little lives and dreary problems.

“This is so boring, John,” I say even though John is at work. A part-time locum position taken as a favour to an old colleague from medical school.  He really must learn to say no, to anyone save myself of course. I would have him say yes to me. Yes, Sherlock. Please, Sherlock. Harder. Faster. Fuck me.

Pornography is easy to find on the interest.  I operate the touchpad with one hand, searching and selecting. I undo my trousers with the other.  How enchanting you would look in that position, my dearling, black leather straps on pale skin, your nipples hard and tight. And your cock, oh, my love…

I am already hard before I slip my hand into my boxers.  Nevertheless I keep myself in check, refusing to rush towards ecstasy. I stroke and tease myself while the pornographic video clips play out before me. Even when I hear Mrs Hudson’s footsteps on the stairs I merely draw my chair a little closer to the desk.

She bustles in carrying a couple of supermarket carrier bags. “I got you some milk and some cleaning stuff, this place could do with a good clean.” Mrs Hudson looks across the room at me and realises what I’m up to. She tuts loudly. “Oh, for heaven’s sake put it away, Sherlock. I don’t need to see that at my age.”

She disappears into the kitchen and I push my chair back. I am far too close to put it away. My cock quivers in my hand and heat tightens in the pit of my stomach. Oh, god, John.  There is no merit in denying myself and I increase the pace of my manipulations. I wish that he would walk in now and see me in all my glory. His eyes blown wide, desirous, captivated, he kneels between my thighs. Wind chapped lips graze the very crown of my cock, where it weeps for him, and then he hesitates, delightfully shy.  He has never had a man’s cock in his mouth before. I shall be the first. My hand entwines in his hair and I compel him forward. His mouth is as sweet as nectar. I know that he is remembering all that his pale harlots ever did for him and seeking to replicate it upon me.

There, John, there. In that very spot. Oh, god, sweet. You have the tongue of a demon. Just so... There. Suck me. Harder. Oh, god, you’re sucking me! More. I’m so close…coming…John…Oh god, I’m coming!

I bit down hard upon my lip, silencing my moans, but I cannot still the spasms that rack my body. I jerk in my seat, so obvious to even the most blind of observers.

It ends, as all joy must, leaving me wrecked and content. I lean my elbows on the desk and rest my head on the heels of my hands.

Mrs Hudson emerges from the kitchen, doubtless she has been waiting for me to finish. She pats me on the shoulder and puts a cup of coffee down on the desk in front of me, sweet and black, just as I like it.

“Do make yourself decent, dear.” 

I clean up and zip up, making myself as decent as I ever am.

Mrs Hudson lowers herself carefully into the chair opposite me, the one where John usually sits. Her hip is particularly painful today. The beating she received at David’s hands would not have helped. Anger darkens in my soul, a bitter gut-wrench of rage.

“David?” she asks a dozen questions in a single word.

“Is a nothing, a nobody, flotsam and jetsam on the sea of life.  He was traumatised by his uncle’s execution –“

“George wasn’t even really his uncle.” Mrs Hudson interrupts, telling me what I already know so well. She’s indignant, irritated and just a little afraid.

“Traumatised by his uncle’s execution and he has constantly refused to accept that his uncle was a murderer. He has suffered severe depression, dropped out of high school and into more than one psychiatric unit. David is a born again Christian who has been expelled from at least two churches due to his erratic and bizarre behaviour. Up until three weeks ago he was a student at a theological college in Islington, but they threw him out after he smashed all the eighteenth century stained glass windows in the chapel.”   I take her wrinkled hand across the desk. “If he goes to the authorities with some extraordinary tale of murder, no one will ever believe him and even if they pause for a moment to question it’ll be my word against his and I can be very convincing.”

“What if he insists that he was with George when that second girl was killed?” Mrs Hudson’s trying to think it through, trying to cover every angle. It’s one of the things I like about her. My first and only partner in crime.

“That was unfortunate,” I admit. Mr George Hudson had run his life like a well ordered machine, never deviating from the patterns he set for himself. Only on that one night had he made a detour on his way home to call in on his thirteen-year-old nephew for just ten minutes – the wrong ten minutes – to deliver a book, dull beyond belief, about the history of the combustion engine. “But the Florida police didn’t believe David’s story, not when all the other evidence stacked up against your husband.” Not when she had consigned the book to the furnace in the basement. “They thought that George had persuaded the boy to lie for him, that he had been groomed. There were even hints of sexual abuse, never fully investigated or followed up upon, since they were far more interested in convicting a serial killer.”

“But we know the truth and so does David.”

“The truth is what people choose to believe that it is. They pick and choose the truth to fit in with their funny little lives and their dim little minds. Truth is a conjuring trick and I am an excellent magician.”

“Oh, I know how clever you are.” She says with almost maternal pride. “And I know that you’re watching out for me, but you can’t be with me every minute of the day. What if David comes back when you’re not here? I may be an old woman, but I’m not ready for my coffin just yet.”

“You’ve nothing to worry about,” I promise her. “I’ll deal with David.”

“Be careful, Sherlock.” Mrs Hudson touches the bruise on her right cheek. “I’d be quite happy to know that David’s six feet under, but I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”

“It won’t.” I stand up and walk around the desk. “Go downstairs, have a cup of tea and one of your herbal soothers.” I help her to her feet, as courteous as any knight errant. The discolouration on her lined cheek is mottled red and purple. I find it almost attractive and I drop a light kiss onto her upturned face. “I know where David’s staying,  but I’ll bide my time until I’ve created the perfect opportunity and then I’ll dispose of him.”

“What if starts shooting his mouth off in the meantime?”

“To whom? If he goes to the police he’s just another nutcase with a fanciful tale and even the gutter press will hesitate to run such a libellous story with absolutely no supporting evidence. What if I were to sue for defamation of character? There’s no one David can tell who might actually believe him.”

*

Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? Oh, it’s quite definitely a gun.

John doesn’t usually take his firearm to the surgery with him. It may be in a rough area, but his patients aren’t quite that dangerous. He has it now though, hidden in his pocket as he goes into the kitchen. Is he going to shoot the fridge? No, that’s more my style than his.

John marches back out into our living room, with a set jaw and empty hands.

“I thought that you were making tea,” I say.

He sits on the arm of his chair with his hands stuffed into his pockets. Belligerent, angry John. “A young man came to see me at the surgery four days ago.”

Four days? Ah, John, you’ve hidden it well, but then you’ve been out so much of late, at the surgery, on a date or having dinner at a colleague’s house, wasn’t that last night’s excuse?  If you have concealed this from me then you have done excellently and I applaud you for it. My duplicitous John.

I see no reason to waste time dissembling. “David Lancaster”

“How did you know?”

I sit back on the sofa, all casual and unconcerned. “He’s Mrs Hudson’s nephew, in a manner of speaking anyway and he’s been a thorn in my side for quite some time.”

John stares at me as if he’s trying to read my mind. “Ever since his uncle was executed in Florida for two murders the boy swears that he didn’t commit?”

“He isn’t a boy. He’s a young man and dangerously deluded. Did he tell you that he was the one who attacked Mrs Hudson?”

“Yes, he did. That’s what made me wonder.” John’s tongue flicks nervously over his lip. “I would have dismissed everything he told me as the ramblings of an unhinged mind, but for that one thing. Mrs Hudson swore that she’d been mugged, just some chav in a hoodie trying to steal her handbag, but she was lying and you backed her up. Why would you do that?”

It was a clumsy lie. I might have easily thought of a better one had not John found Mrs Hudson, huddled on the bottom stair before I did. A web of falsehood is never difficult to weave, but this is John and his question is purely rhetorical. He already knows the answer.

I counterattack with a question of my own. “What else did David tell you?”

“That you framed his uncle for the murders of those two young women. He insists that his uncle George was with him when the second girl, the student, was killed, but that the police didn’t believe him, that no one’s ever believed him.”  John meets my gaze head on, utterly unafraid. “David says that you’re the devil, Lucifer incarnate and that you sent an innocent man to his death.”

“There are no devils, only the demons we create in our own minds.” I stand up. Will he flinch if I move towards him? No, not my John.

“Why did he come to you with this macabre fantasy?” I ask. It is the one thing that I never considered, that he might ensnare John in all of this.

John smiles grimly. “He wanted to warn me about you and about Mrs Hudson, to let me know that you walked the path of evil. David’s sure that I’m a good man, a doctor who has sworn an oath to preserve life and a soldier, a patriot who fought for his country. He wants me to persuade you to repent of your sins and to confess them, preferably to Scotland Yard.”

“And if I am not to be persuaded?”

“Then he and I must go to the police together, like Daniel into the lion’s den, and convince them of your guilt.”

I lean on the mantelpiece, a vantage point from which I can observe him clearly. “Are you convinced, John?”

His hand strays unconsciously towards the gun in his pocket. “I’ve spent four days researching this on the internet and in the newspaper archives. I’ve read all the official accounts, all the press reports and they all hold together and I know you…or at least I thought I did. I’ve been over and over it all in my head. There are so many things that don’t make sense and yet it all fits together, the pieces of a puzzle with ‘Sherlock-was-here’ written all over it.” John swallows heavily. “George Hudson wasn’t a murderer, was he?”

I plunge into the abyss. “No, he was not.”

“Shit!” John stares at me in dismay. “You knew that he didn’t murder those girls and yet you did nothing to prevent his execution? Wait a minute, didn’t you once tell that you ensured it? And where the hell does Mrs Hudson fit into all of this?”

I answer his last question first. “We met by chance in a café, a diner as the Americans call it, strangers in a strange land. She said how lovely it was to hear another English voice and we fell into conversation. Mrs Hudson was desperately homesick, but her husband was set on remaining in Florida for the rest of their lives. She had no money of her own, no employment and therefore no way of leaving him.  If George Hudson were to die however her inheritance would be quite sufficient to allow her to return to London. To this house, which Mr Hudson had recently inherited from a great-aunt he had never met.” I indicate the bricks and mortar which surround us with a wave of my hand. “It was valuable enough seven years ago. What do you suppose that it’s worth now, two, three, four million? People have killed for a lot less.”

“People, Sherlock, not you, not Mrs Hudson. “ John’s appalled, but he hasn’t recoiled in horror. “And why make it so bloody complicated? If it was all about money why not just arrange an accident or something and get Mrs Hudson to claim on his life insurance?”

“Dull! Tedious! Boring! Boring!” I proclaim loudly. “Where’s the challenge in that? A child could do it. We were playing the long game and I was pitting my wits against the Florida Police Department and believe me they’re a lot sharper than Lestrade’s lot.  It took meticulous planning and nerves of steel. Four and a half years in total before George Hudson was finally executed, after a last minute appeal to the state governor which looked as if it would succeed.”

“Executed for crimes he didn’t commit, while the real murderer went free.”

“Yes, he did.”

We look at one another and I know that John had made the correct deduction before we ever began this conversation. I have merely confirmed it for him.

“It was the ultimate gamble, John, to commit murder twice in a state where the penalty is death by lethal injection.”

All pretence is stripped away. I have lain my soul bare before him. He draws his breath in sharply. His eyes widen and darken as if with illicit desire. I am sorely tempted to dip my head and kiss his sweet mouth.

“I read the reports,” he whispers. “I know what you did to those girls, that the first one was raped – “

“By George Hudson, it was his DNA that they found on her body and you would not believe how complicated that was to set up. There wasn’t time with the second, just fifteen minutes between her leaving the grocery store and her body being discovered in the parking lot. If the police had listened to David then George Hudson would have had a watertight alibi for the second murder, but the devil smiled on me.”

“Well, they say that he always looks after his own.” John half-smiles at me. Then his eyes grow darker still. “You are incredible and yet the moment that David told me his tale I knew…I’ve glimpsed it before, that violence in you, that ruthless disregard for the rules that other people – normal people – live their lives by.”

“Is that why you’re armed?”

John looks genuinely surprised. “No, I couldn’t hurt you, not unless…but we’re not enemies are we, Sherlock? We’re in this together, you and I and Mrs Hudson. We’d only known each other a couple of days when I shot that taxi driver, but I knew that you wouldn’t betray me.”

“That was different, you killed him to protect me, not for financial gain or because you were playing Russian roulette with the state of Florida.” I cannot help but play devil’s advocate.

“Dead’s dead, Sherlock. He wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last. When I was in Afghanistan a roadside patrol was attacked by a group of so-called freedom fighters. Two were killed outright and three were seriously wounded. A young boy, sixteen, seventeen years old was caught in the crossfire. His comrades abandoned him.  I could have treated his injuries, they weren’t life threatening. Instead I took his own gun, the one he’d used to kill our soldiers, and I put the barrel to his temple. He was so fucking scared, literally pissing himself, and it felt so good. The little bastard had it coming. I blew his fucking brains out.”

John’s voice and his gaze are rock steady. He is not apologising for his actions nor is he seeking absolution. I am proud of you, my dearling.

“The humanitarians who think that life and war are bound by some code of good conduct would not have been very pleased with you, John.”

“No they wouldn’t and forensics might have sussed that the wound wasn’t self-inflicted as I claimed, but no one could be bothered to look, no one gave a bugger.”

I tilt my head to one side, gazing down at him.  “Someone may give a bugger if David disappears.”

I have thrown down the gauntlet and John takes it up without a moment’s hesitation. “Who’ll notice? He’s got no friends, no family, the college chucked him out. David’s just another drifter, one of the thousands of young people who pass through London every month and if some of them never leave, well, these things happen, people go missing all the time.”

“Perfect,” I say. There is no advantage to hiding my admiration. “You have it all, no one will care, no one will even realise that he’s gone, that this great dark city of ours has swallowed him down.”

“Unless they find the body.”

“They won’t.” I already have a plan for disposal, but it will be easier with John’s assistance. “Will you help me get rid of the corpse once I’ve dealt with him?”

John stands up, his chest brushes against mine. “I’ll kill him for you.”

Oh, my love, what a wonder you are!

“Why?” My voice cracks in my throat.

“For you, for Mrs Hudson, for us.” He touches my cheek. “Because I can, because I want to, because I fucking love you.”

He means it. I have ripped myself down to bare bone, nothing hidden, nothing denied and he loves me still. If we ever stand in the dock they will say that I have created this monster and I shall take the blame upon myself, but it is not so. John Watson is no more normal, no more moral than I. The world may lay his sins at my feet or blame them on the war, but I know better. He was born for darkness.

For my arms and for my bed.

I kiss him.

His hands clench on my back, up over my shoulders to grasp the thin blue silk on either side of my collar. John kisses back, making a battle of tongues and lips. My arms are like a vice around his waist, wool and fabric separate me from his bare skin. I growl with frustration and tug at the hem of his jumper. He clasps my face in his hands and plunders my mouth, ignoring my demand that he stand back and raise his arms for a moment. His fingers claw at my shirt and the buttons fly apart. John ducks his head and fastens his mouth onto my left nipple.

Oh, sweet god! I cradle his head against my chest and bow mine over his so that I can kiss his hair. We stumble back and I half fall into his armchair. He lands on top of me, hard, masculine. I rip his jeans open and he sits back on his haunches just long enough for me to shove jeans and underwear down around his thighs. His cock springs free and bobs up against his stomach. It is the first I have ever touched with love.

“Fuck, Sherlock!” He grinds himself into my fist.

I want to mark him, to bite him, to cut him open and see him bleed.

No, I would not spill my dearling’s blood. I would cut my own throat first.  I bend over him like a bow and we are all precarious balance, all tangled arms and legs. John’s fingers pull in my hair and my scalp burns. He clings to my shoulders, arching up and down, riding my mouth. I surge up to meet him. The pressure is like a razor-wire tightening in my gut and my cock is ready to burst.

Too quick. Too soon.

His groans set me aflame. In my fantasies I had thought to master him, to torment and delay, but my body will not withstand the reality of him, the feel and smell of him. John thrusts into my mouth and we find a furious rhythm together. My poor cock strains painfully against my tight trousers demanding its freedom. I cannot relinquish my hold on John’s hips, not now, not when he is on the verge of ecstasy

When did I ever care for anyone else more than for myself?

“I love you.” My murmur vibrates around him and John shudders, head thrown back, veins standing out on his throat and his cock

“Fuck…god…Sherlock!”

John comes apart under my tongue, pulsing into my mouth, jerking and whimpering in my arms.

And I rise on the crest of his orgasm, coming untouched in long throbbing spasms.

*

London is spread out before us, white, gold and red neon under a crystal black sky. The towers of Canary Wharf, the Gherkin and the half-finished Shard, dominate the skyline. Here on the top of Hampstead Heath we seem to be higher than they are, like gods upon Olympus.

We have dug over a metre down into the wet London clay in the midst of head high brambles and sharp nettles.   David’s body, flexed and bound into a foetal position, is at the bottom of the trench.

I smile at John. The digging has made my shoulders ache and he grimaces, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Almost done,” I say, not troubling to whisper. There is no one to hear us. Tomorrow the heath will be alive with joggers, dog walkers and families, but the thick spines of bramble will keep them away from here.

“Let’s get it filled in.” John bends to the task, shovel in hand.

David is quickly hidden beneath a layer of heavy earth. It was easy to kill him in the end. John has keys to the surgery and he knows how to deactivate the alarms. David came willing, a lamb to the slaughter. John threatened him with his old ivory handled pocket knife, but bullets or a blade would have left blood traces in John’s pristine surgery. We opted for strangulation. My John did not falter or hesitate.

There it is done. I stamp down the earth and with gloved hands we pull the brambles back over the ground. Mrs Hudson will be pleased, just as she was when I told her about John and I. We have severed the last link with her old life. The three of us share a home; share sinister secrets and a bond of affection which is stronger than blood.

There is still the car that I stole in Brentford, the one that we used to bring David’s corpse here, to dispose of, but that is a simple matter.

I stand on the brow of the heath, admiring the city, a carpet of light ripe for darkness and death. John slips his arm around my waist and leans in to kiss me. He rests his forehead against mine and I rub my hands over the span of his back. We are dirty and tired, but his nearness excites me.  Desire tightens in my abdomen and my cock rises shamelessly. John ruts against me and we kiss passionately. I try to devour him with my mouth, to entwine my black soul with his.  He grasps my hips and thrusts helplessly, jerking against my stomach. I meet his thrusts with equal force.  

John squeezes my cock through my trousers. His grip is just a notch below pain.  “Fuck you…please.” He sinks his teeth into my neck. The marks will last for days. “God, Sherlock, please!”

I want him just as desperately as he wants me, but he is irresistible like this, all flushed with arousal. And how I love to hear him plead. It drives a spear of lust through me. I grab his head in my hands. My fingers claw into the softness of his cheeks. He too will have bruises tomorrow. His eyes are black with lust under the sharp, moonless sky.  John’s lips bleed beneath mine. He moans and clutches at me. An instant later he shoves me away.

John wipes the back of his hand across his blood smeared lips. “Kit off and on your knees.”

There is no choice but to disrobe, the act cannot be accomplished otherwise.

“All of it,” demands John when I leave my midnight purple shirt on as a barrier between me and the chill that has seeped into the air.

I kneel in the uncut grass and London glitters before me, a crown of light. John kneels behind me and I see his movement in swift shadow when he raises his arms and pulls his navy blue jumper over his head. He drapes it over my stomach and thighs, over the aching spear of my erection.  I like its warmth and like more that it is his, infused with the scent. My hand moulds it to the contours of my cock and I pull at myself through the soft wool.

The friction is glorious, a rub of slightly itchy softness over my shaft. I squash it up against my fraenulum and a low groan of pleasure breaks from my lips.

John tugs at my hand. “Leave it,” he orders. He kisses the nape of my neck. “Not yet, love.”  John pulls my hand up to my waist, interlocking the fingers of his left hand with mine.

“Christ,” he mutters and his right hand touches my tight, dry opening. “Kneel up a bit more. I should have brought something from the surgery.”

I grin. I suppose that it’s difficult to remember the lubricant when you’re busy committing murder, but this is not going to be easy. We have been together only days and in that time we have done this twice before; twice with John and never with another. In time my body will learn to yield to him at a touch, but not now, not tonight.

John growls in frustration and forces a finger in. He withdraws it, spits on his hand and tries again. I can’t see his erection, but I can feel it bumping impatiently against my arse. John leans in and rubs it against me with a mumbled curse.

“Cut me,” I say in a sudden flash of inspiration.

John grasps. “That’s so dangerous.” He likes the idea though. His cock jumps at the thought, leaking onto my skin.

“It’s my own blood and I’m clean.” My head falls back onto his shoulder and my eyes meet his. “Do it, John.”

John fumbles amongst our discarded clothing for his pocketknife. I remember the terror in David’s eyes when he held it to his jugular. John makes a long thin cut in my forearm and the sting of the cold metal makes me all but sob with frustrated lust.

“You’re too beautiful to mark,” says John, but he squeezes my blood onto hand and rubs it into his swollen cock. “This is insane.”

Oh, yes, we are as mad and each other, he and I.

A dog fox barks in the distance.

And John is there, inside me in a single blood slicked thrust. I cry out in triumphant agony.

“It’s okay,” says John. He holds still, shaking with the effort and ravaging my shoulders with his tongue and teeth.

“Fuck me,” I demand and he does.

It is impossible to keep my eyes open through the haze of pain and pleasure. John slams into me, groaning and swearing, and I ram myself back onto the cock that is splitting me open. Through half shuttered eyes I see the stark outlines of trees carved into the black sky. The images swim and sway, a vine like a noose, a cascade of thick branches the spectre of a highwayman hung on a gibbet.

“Christ. God!” John is coming inside me. His quivering hand fumbles under the jumper that covers my desperate hardness.

It only takes a touch.

*

We dress and drive the car to a council estate in Tottenham, where we douse it in petrol and set it ablaze. The authorities are mistrusted here. It will be a long time before anyone calls the fire brigade and when they eventually arrive the local youths will probably attack the firemen.

John and I stop to watch the car burnt. Flames tower into the sky, lawless and uncontrolled. My cock hardens once again in appreciation of the destruction.

*

It has turned from summer to winter in a single night and there is a distinct chill in the air. John and I are curled up on the sofa with a blanket over our knees. He is watching an old war film, one that would normally have me screaming with boredom, but I am happily playing with John’s cock. I slide his foreskin down and then back up over the head.

“Don’t, Sherlock.” John wiggles and settles even closer to me than he was before. “I’m watching the telly.” He gives a long sigh and lifts his hips to meet my hand.

I chuckle and kiss his earlobe. He’s wearing my aftershave. I like the way it smells on him. When I raise my head the far less pleasant smell of bleach hits my nose. Mrs Hudson’s cleaning the bathroom down the hallway, humming a tune to herself as she works. It would be warmer if I were to get up and close the door, but I am too comfortable to move, besides an open door is an invitation.

Sure enough Mrs Hudson comes in a few minutes later, peeling off her Marigold gloves as she heads for the kitchen. “There, it’s done,” she says, “but you two can do it yourselves next time, when you’re not too busy canoodling that is.”

“We…I…” John blushes charmingly and yanks the blanket over his rampant cock.

He isn’t nearly as uninhibited as I am. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if Mrs Hudson wanted to sit and knit while we fucked on the sofa. In fact I would rather enjoy having an audience.

“Oh, really.” Mrs Hudson smiles in mock exasperation. “Can’t you boys keep your hands off each other’s privates for five minutes?”

John goes the same cherry red as his jumper.

“Why would we want too?” I say blandly.

“Honestly, Sherlock, you’re incorrigible.” Her gaze rakes over me and lingers for a moment on the obvious bulge in my tight trousers. “I do wish that you would behave yourselves.”

Mrs Hudson trots off into the kitchen. Apparently murder doesn’t constitute misbehaviour.  I have told her exactly what transpired the night we killed David and buried his body high on the heath, including how John and I fucked on the grass. She giggled at that and told me that I was a naughty boy. 

John slumps back on the sofa. “Bloody hell, haven’t you got any concept of privacy?”

“No.” If it wasn’t for society’s stupid rules I would wank in the middle of Oxford Circus without a second thought.

“Well, I have.”

John’s still wonderfully hard though. I run my thumb over his slit and it comes away sticky with pre-come. He bits his lip. I repeat the motion, a little faster, a little rougher. He won’t be able to come like this, but he’s a pleasure to torment. His head rolls back on my shoulder. I raise my fingers to my lips and lick away his translucent fluid.

A long shiver goes through him. “God…do my balls.”

“What about Mrs – “

John grabs my hand and shoves it down where he wants it to be. I squeeze gently and roll his sac in my palm. He moans and arches his spine. “Please. More.”  John forces his lovely eyes open. “Would you ever do it again?”

“Would I ever commit murder again?”

John nods. Mrs Hudson’s just switched the kettle on.

I smile. “Why not?”

John grabs my collar and pulls me down into a kiss. I keep my hand cupped protectively over his balls while we explore each other’s mouths with lips and tongues.

Eventually we have to surface for air. We cuddle up to one another and John unzips my trousers.

“Mrs Hudson’s in the kitchen,” I remind him, not that I give a damn.

“Who cares?” John wraps his hand possessively around my cock.

“Who cares about what, dear?” asks Mrs Hudson.

I know that she must have heard every word. “John doesn’t care if you see him giving me a hand-job. Do you, John?”

“No.”  John gives me a quick rub just to prove the point, but he’s still an interesting red colour, although I could be generous and blame that on his arousal.

“Well, I’m sure it feels lovely,” says Mrs Hudson with a twinkle in her eye, “but I can’t stand here watching you two all day. I’m meant to be going to bingo with Mrs Turner.”

“You could always come back later,” John blurts out, not quite looking at either of us

“Well, I suppose I could…” Mrs Hudson looks at me.

“Stay for supper and whatever mindless crap you and John want to watch on the television.” I grin wolfishly. “You can even bring your knitting.”

*

Midnight. The witching hour. The fire glows red in the grate and the candles have burnt low. Mrs Hudson has fallen asleep in John’s armchair, a row of purl unravelling on her lap. John is also asleep. Asleep in my arms on the sofa, with his back pressed against my chest. I reach past him, down to the floor. My fingers scrabble for the edge of the old plaid blanket and I pull it up over our naked bodies. John murmurs and snuggles even closer.

“What time is it?” John whispers sleepily.

“Only midnight, dearling.”   I kiss the battle scar on his shoulder.

He sighs and relaxes. “Night, love.”

The candles go out and the fire dies. Darkness wraps us in its ebony embrace.

A fox howls as it did upon the heath.

I am warm and contented.

_My true love hath my heart and I have his._

 

 


End file.
